Jen McClure's Ruminations

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Journalism that Matters - Part II - From Questions to Insights, Ideas, Inspiration & Initiatives

Day Two of the Journalism that Matters gathering consisted of small group discussions, and highly interactive, action-driven workshops focused on a wide range of topics, including: how to better embrace citizen journalists in the next newsroom model, updating journalism education, encouraging youth to be more civic-minded and active, policy issues - including net neutrality and their impact on online journalism models, the development of new business models, etc.

The result was a wide range of innovative ideas, insights and some new intiatives that will occur in existing and new newsrooms over the bext several months. Here's a sample of some of the participants' comments and insights that they shared at the end of day:

"I have a new understanding that professional and citizen journalists can come together tio produce something valuable - a new king of news model."

"Journalism can transform itself from reporting only about problems to reporting on problems being solved in news ways."

"We have a plan to collaborate with citizens - especially young people to re-energize the news."

"We will start a community needs database."

"Perhaps we need a new - or more names for "citizen journalism" to take into account that it's not all what we traditionally think of as "journalism," (uploading a photo, commenting, linking,...)

"We need to train citizens who want to act as journalists."

"We need to better articulate to the public what it is that journalists do - how we do it and why it's valuable."

"Professional journalists cover stories because they are news; citizen journalists share stories because they are living them or passionate about them."

"We should think about new business models based on the idea of a community newsroom and community supported news gatheirng."

"We need to learn from those on the ground who are experimenting with new media tools and models and having success."

"With more news consumption moving online, we need to consider policy issues like net neutrality, access to to the Internet, media consolidation and structural issues."

"The role of the journalist is evolving into that of a convener of conversations among complex groups and issues. "

"We need to address this shift in journalism education and curriculum."

"We need to consider whether just the vehicle of journalism is broken or is it journalism itself that is broken?"

"The values of journalism themselves need to change as we move tofrom the 1:many model to the many:many model of journalism. That requires a new covenant."

"We need to invest in and encourage young people to be more civic-minded and engaged, and see them as leaders in this new world of journalism."

"We need to better embrace ethnic communities in new journalism models and acknowledge and address the specific interests of these groups and provide relevant content to them."

"We need to remember that this is a business."

The event ended with many participants stating their commitment to starting, supporting, collaborating on and coaching others on "next newsroom" experiments. This action addressed the primary goal of the conference, which was to:

"Pick an ideal location, and start a news organization from scratch, using the best-available technology and ideas, and without the obligations or burdens of legacy processes or infrastructure. Where will it be, what will it look like, who will own it, and how will it run."

It will be interesting to see what happens next...

Journalism That Matters Conference Seeks to Envision & Create The Next Newsroom

The first day of the Journalism That Matters conference generated many more questions than answers.

With the overarching goal of helping to create and start the "next news organization," 160+ journalists, journalism professors, traditional and new media professionals, public advocates and citizen journalists gathered at George Washington University to discuss, debate and share ideas.

The event began today with a State of the Citizen Media Update, featuring a discussion with Jay Rosen, Faye Anderson, Cody Howard, Jan Schaffer, Peggy Kuhr, Merrill Brown and Dan Gillmor.

JTM co-organizer Chris Peck opened the discussion by stating that the age of citizen journalism has resulted in a "time of chaos" for traditional news organizations. The participants were then asked to pose some questions for the panel to address. Some initial questions that arose \included:

* What is the proper mix of pro and am in the new journalism model?

* What is the best way for us to ensure accuracy and balance?

* What will the successful business model look like?

* How can we get more of the public involved? How are young people involved and how will these burgeoning models help the next generation?

* How does citizen journalism work differently when you have different sizes and types of communities?

*Should there be a code of conduct for citizen journalists?

The panel discussed these questions and others. Here's a brief recap of some of the discussion:

Jay Rosen stated, "If more people participated in the press, the press would be better off, because people have the right to own and participate in the discussions of their country. Participation is not only good, but people have the tools now and are going to use the tools they have. Readers are now writers. Everyone has the power to participate."

Dan Gillmor responded, "We're in a great place on balance - we're seeing progress. There are thousands of experiments going on around the world now, but keep in mind that there will be some failures, but there will be an enormous amount of innovation in the next few years. Certainly there are problems with discourse, thoroughness, accuracy, independence, media literacy, but if we can address those, we have a chance of getting this right. I am enormously optimistic."

Jan Schaffer commented that more than ever before there seems to be an impetus for citizens to get involved in areas that traditional journalists have left uncovered. There are very interesting experiments happening in the nonprofit world and via think tanks, she said "I am also very optimistic. I think we need to be careful about calling it "chatter." It doesn't all have to be big-J journalism to have value."

Peggy Kuhl who has trained citizen journalists commented, that through that work she discovered that there are so many ways that you can mix what is happening out there and what peoples' interests are and how they want to be involved, that we don't need to choose between traditional journalism or citizen journalism, "it's not this or that, it will be a mix."

Jay Rosen described his citizen journalism project, NewAssignment.net saying, "I'm trying to figure out if there is such a thing as an open system, an open platform in news - not expanding an existing news organization, but trying to involve the thousands of people who want to get involved. We're driving down the cost for like-minded people to find each other, share information and collaborate - a lot of people can get involved, which would have been impossible before. At the same time that we have the old systems becoming more particpatory, we have the open systems trying to learn how to become more journalistic."

He continued, "If you can design a project where the mom that has one hour or week or someone who has ten minutes or someone who blogs as a hobby, and you can accept all those forms of what are effectively civic donations, that's a great start. We don't know how all those forms will work yet to result in high-quality journalism."

"Americans have never believed that journalism ever belonged to the professionalized press. The professionals need to ask themselves - what is the stronger press - one that is owned by 'us' the professionalized press - or a shared press, and I think the smart ones know that a shared press is stronger."

Rosen asked Jan Schaffer - "What did you have to change your mind about as you went from the newsroom to what you are doing now?"

She answered that as a journalist in a newsroom several years ago there was no desire to interact with readers. "Most journalists are really uninformed about what is happening in journalism. How can we get legacy journalism to pay more attention to addressing what is happening and want to pay more attention to citizens" she asked.

Schaffer also called for "Equilibrium " - the give and the get. "If they are out of balance you won't get much. People have to get something for their participation." She asked Merrill Brown what that might be. He answered that one of the things they are focusing on is "making it easy:" to upload a photo or article, get a press pass, connect with others in the network. These are important to participating. He then asked the audience, "How concerned are you that badly run newspapers are going to fail in this country in the next fews years and what can we do about that? is that important to you - if your local daily newspaper fails or is that just part of the evolution?" The audience discussed this and one participant stated - I think it's a false question. Newspapers are not going out of business. Brown responded that he has already talked to newspapers who have asked "Shall we start by just cutting out Tuesday?"

Rosen responded, "I think it would be a good thing if some of the bad papers fail. Then we could just start over. Without a common narrative it's difficult to see how a community can exist. But people share life, they share problems, and today they are more able than ever to share information, so I am not sure that the local newspaper is necessarily the best way to do this. Some of these newspapers have been doing this so badly for so long, they deserve to die."

Leonard Witt responded that we don't necessarily have just the backfence neighborhood community anymore. We have MySpace and other networked communities. In fact, this group may be more of a community to me than my neighborhood, because this is what I am interested in."
No matter where we are, we are connected to a community.

Rosen quoted DeToqueville, saying "Newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers." This is just as true now, he said. DeToqueville was referring to the newspaper. But today we are referring to the web. That's why journalism is moving to the web.

He continued that for the first eight to nine years of the web, newspaper organizations simply re-purposed content (if they had online entities at all), showing that there was a huge misunderstanding of the web. "I don't know that we need to save newspapers. I do think we need to be concerned about news organizations."

Peggy Kuhl summed things up by saying "There is a hunger for information and news, both through traditional and nontraditional channels."

The session ended with the panel posing more questions for consideration:

From Faye Anderson: For awhile there was a debate about whether citizen journalists are journalists. Is a citizen journalist who practices journalistic principles and standards a professional or an amateur?

From Cody Howard: Where can the average news consumer go to find the truth?

From Jan Schaffer: Does there need to be a business model behind the citizen journalism movement or might it be just a part of the new volunteerism?

From Peggy Kuhl: What new skill sets do we need as we move forward?

From Dan Gillmor: If you have kids, are you teaching them to be independent thinkers?

From Jay Rosen: What are some everyday situations we encounter where we have to be journalists, where we have to 'file a report?' If we can start there, we can figure out what people already know about the naturally recurring acts of journalism.

More to come tomorrow. For more information on this conference, and to view and comment upon the proposed next newsroom business plan that will be the topic of discussion for this event, visit http://newshare.typepad.com/jtmnextnewsroom/

Thoughts on My Thesis: The Paper & the Public: The Evolving Relationship between the Public & the Press in America -- From Public Journalism to Citizen Journalism

I'm working on my masters thesis - an exploration of the the evolving relationship between the public and the press in America, via a comparison between the public journalism movement and the current development of citizen journalism.

Like so many of my colleagues, I thought it would be helpful to share my work in its early stages, so following is the intro, as it stands now. I welcome your thoughts and look forward to an enlightening discussion/debate on this topic.

Introduction

According to the Newspaper Association of America and the Audit Bureau of Circulation, as of March 31, 2007, the average circulation for daily newspapers in the United States decreased by 2.1 percent over the same period in 2006, while Sunday circulation dropped 3.1 percent over the same period. Meanwhile Nielsen//NetRatings, an Internet media and market research company, reported that more than 59 million people visited newspapers’ websites during the first quarter of 2007 (37.6 percent of all active Internet users). This represents a 5.3 percent increase over the same period a year earlier. Scarborough Research, a firm that researches media habits, reports that, on average, newspapers’ websites contribute to a 13.7 percent increase in newspaper audience for 25- to 34-year-olds, and a 9.2 percent increase for 18- to 24-year-olds.

But, it is newspapers’ weblogs (blogs) that have enjoyed the largest increase in readership. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, visits to the blogs of the top ten newspapers grew by 210% from December 2005 – December 2006, garnering 3.8 million unique visitors in December 2006. By contrast, total online readership at the top ten newspapers grew only 9% over the same period.

While one interpretation of these statistics could potentially fuel the debate over whether the newspaper is “dying,” what is more accurate and interesting to note is that the newspaper organization is changing – and changing dramatically. These statistics indicate that while readership of the print edition of newspapers is decreasing, newspaper organizations are successfully retaining their audience, and in some cases growing audience, particularly in the younger demographics by complementing their print offerings with an online component, especially online offerings like blogs where readers can not only read the news, but participate in the journalistic process by commenting and engaging in conversation and debate about the news and in some cases even contributing content in the form of photos and commentary, a practice called citizen journalism.

As a result of newspaper organizations’ adoption of these new communications technologies, the public’s relationship with the press continues to evolve and change. It has been argued that these new technologies threaten the future of the newspaper. But, this paper will argue that these new online tools provide newspaper organizations with the opportunity not only to preserve, but even enhance their role as an important social institution in American society.

To illustrate this assertion that newspapers have evolved over time to continue to serve the needs of society and to explore the evolving relationship between the public and the press, this paper will focus on two particular and relatively recent developments in the history of American journalism: public journalism and citizen journalism.

By examining the public journalism movement of the 1990s and the emergence of the current citizen journalism phenomenon, this paper will establish a historical context to support this thesis and explore the following questions:

• Has the relationship between the public and the press changed as a result of new media and communications technologies? If so, how?

• Is there some intersection between public journalism and citizen journalism that is emerging to create a new relationship between the public and the press?

• In this age of new media and citizen journalism, what are newspapers for?

• What does the future hold for the newspaper organization as a social institution?

Why is a comparison of public journalism and citizen journalism relevant and important to exploring these larger questions? It is relevant because this comparison represents a microcosm of the relationship between the public and the press over the course of a single generation – approximately 1988 to the present (2007). This particular historical period is important to the evolution of this relationship because it coincides with the introduction of the personal computer and the rise of the Internet. Additionally, this comparison is interesting and important to examine because public journalism demonstrates a concerted effort on behalf of the press to re-engage with the public, while citizen journalism is an effort initiated by the members of the public to get more actively involved in the journalistic process.

A is for "Authenticity," Not "Asshole" - A Call for Civility in the Blogosphere

I've noted a disturbing trend in my blog-reading of late. Several notable bloggers aren't being responsible with their emotions or their words. In fact, they're allowing themselves to be downright mean. Insults are flying. Name-calling, accusations and harsh judgments abound.

C'mon people, being "authentic" doesn't mean you should say whatever comes into your head. And, just because you can use your blog (or podcast or online video) to say whatever you want about whomever you want, doesn't mean that you should.

Like it or not, A-list bloggers will be looked to as role models. And therefore, those A-listers who are communications professionals and are actively promoting blogging and other social media tools as a viable communications vehicle for the business world need to be especially cautious about how they themselves use the tool.

You should know better, and should be using best practices in all your communications efforts, as you are setting an example. Blogging will never be adopted widely by business if there are so many examples that prove the stereotype that blogging is just a vehicle for opinionated sniping, complaining, name-calling, undocumented accusations and profanity.

So, here is a best practice I would like to suggest: if someone offends you or misrepresents you on his or her blog, podcast, video, etc., don't start a blog storm, contact the person directly and privately to discuss it in a mature manner. We had to learn these lessons when email was a new tool: The written word can easily be misinterpreted. Don't use email to address a dispute. Don't copy people unnecessarily. Don't forward emails to people when it was assumed that the communications would be kept confidential. If we've learned those lessons with that communications vehicle, can't we reduce our learning curve with this one? Why copy the whole world when you get upset or are having a dispute with someone? Don't air your dirty laundry or that of others. Not only does no one really care, but, at least for me, seeing all that negativity pop up in my RSS reader puts a sour taint on my day.

Just because we have a new communications vehicle available to us, that doesn't mean that we should use it indiscriminately.

So, today on Stop Cyberbullying Day, let's all join together and make a vow before this mean-spiritedness gets too out of control. Let's all vow to use all of our communications channels, including blogging, for good not evil. Let's be positive and kind. Let's address our disputes appropriately and maturely. Let's set a good example, and prove that this is an important new communications vehicle that has many advantages and should be taken seriously. Thank you.

________________________________________________________________________________

If you wouldn't say it in person, why say it online?

Don't write it.
Don't forward it.
Delete cyberbullying.

This is part of the anti-cyberbullying campaign from the National Crime Prevention Council:

You can post it and other similar messages on your website.

What are newspapers for?

I haven't written much here lately because I've been quite busy working on the SNCR's recent research symposium and awards program, next spring's NewComm Forum, the Journal of New Communications Research and my master's thesis, which explores how Americans have engaged with the press historically, and how this new era of social media and citizen journalism is affecting the role of traditional media in our society.

During the course of my thesis research this evening, I found something interesting that I would like to share: a video clip from the recent Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco. During one of the conference's panel discussions New York Times chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger talked about citizen journalism and its effect on the New York Times and traditional media model. While Mr. Sulzberger stated that his newspaper and others are increasingly embracing citizen journalism in some way, he seemed to exhibit what I would characterize as arrogance about the unchallenged role of arbiter for the New York Times and the traditional media model in today's society. He spoke of the NYT pursuing its role the way it has for the last 150 years, and seemed quite comfortable in discounting the knowledge, wisdom and emerging influence of new citizen journalists and the social media movement. This is only a two-minute clip and admittedly his comments could have been taken out of context, but I invite you to check it out and share your thoughts and opinions here.

These new trends in journalism -- and traditional media's reaction, are of paramount interest to me as I write my thesis and ask the question: In this era of online news sources, aggregated publishing models, declining readership of newspapers - especially among younger audiences and the rise of social media and citizen journalism, what are newspapers for? (inspired by Jay Rosen's "What are journalists for?")

In her book Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America, journalism professor Hazel Dicken-Garcia outlined a number of criteria to measure whether a social institution (such as the newspaper) is meeting the needs of society at the time. I believe these criteria are enduring, and that it is quite interesting to consider them in today's context, and as a new era of journalism emerges:

- What is the function of the newspaper and is there agreement in the industry as to what a newspaper’s function should be?

- What is the newspapers's place in the social structure? How does the newspaper function in the way today’s society is ordered?

- How do newspapers interact with, reflect and help shape today’s society?

- Are newspapers an integral part of reinforcing and promoting the goals of our society?

- Do today's newspapers exhibit a stable organization and with consistent policies and sense of community between journalists and a common understanding of the newspaper's purpose?

- Do newspapers’ work and emphasis reflect a conscious sense of their role to keep society going?

- Do newspapers accurately reflect today’s society’s composition and diversity?

- Do newspapers have a permanence as an institution?

- Do newspapers have an understanding that they serve the whole society by addressing a diversity of groups, exploring a wide range of ideas and being involved with social issues and movements of the society?

- Is there a balanced relationship between newspapers and society, so that continuance or advancement of either depends on the other?

- Do newspapers have a clear and separate purpose, function and body of knowledge, skills, expertise separate from other social institutions?

It's clear that many newspaper organizations (including the NYT to some extent) are considering these types of questions and are beginning to embrace new models and explore innovative ways of addressing the needs of society, but comments such as those made by Mr. Sulzberger do not bode well for the future of the newspaper industry or its ability to fully embrace this new era.

What do you think? How would you rate newspapers today as measuring up against these criteria?

Recap from the Ragan PR Conference

I was honored to be asked to speak at the Ragan Strategic PR Conference last week in Chicago, along with several of my colleagues and friends - new and old - including Steve Crescenzo, Shel Holtz, Katie Paine, Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble, and Joe Thornley, as well as a couple hundred PR professionals from around the country and Jim Ylisela, Cristin Clifford, Rebecca Anderson and others from Ragan. We talked about social media trends and technologies, best practices in PR and most interestingly in my opinion, "what's killing PR."

Jeremiah did a great job documenting the event, so check it out if you want to know more.

I was most excited by the announcement we made onsite at the conference that the Society for New Communications Research will partner with Ragan to produce the 3rd Annual New Communications Forum. Be there - March 7-9 in Vegas... baby. (I've been informed that one needs to pair "baby" with "Vegas" in order to really convey the excitement of this venue.)

(Caveat: I am the executive director of the SNCR.)

A Couple of New Podcasts

I've done a couple of podcast interviews lately.

I was delighted to interview Scott Wilder of QuickBooks/Intuit for a New Communications Conversations podcast. We talked about Intuit's successful corporate blogging initiative as part of the Society for New Communications Research's in-depth study of corporate blogging policy best practices. We also feature great new music from Shagg titled "Buh Ba Ba Ba." Check it out here.

Also, I was honored to be asked to participate in Eric Mattson's quest to collect 1,000 podcast interviews. As interviewee #28, Eric and I talked about social media adoption trends in the corporate world.

Upcoming Dow Jones Teleseminar: How Startups & VCs Can Benefit from Using Social Media

I've been invited to be part of a Dow Jones teleseminar/webinar, "Virtual Marketing: How Startups & VCs Can Benefit from Using Social Media," on Friday, April 28 at 3:00pm PT.

This should be a lot of fun and I'm honored to join such an interesting, diverse and distinguished group. My fellow panelists include: John Furrier of PodTech.net, Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, Jennifer Jones, president of Jennifer Jones Consulting and a marketing podcaster with Podtech.net, Sharon Wienbar, a managing director with BA Venture Partners and Dave Barry, managing editor of Dow Jones Venture Capital Analyst.

We'll be chatting about:

• How to use social media to boost your marketing efforts
• Why you shouldn't ditch your PR firm yet
• Ways to incorporate social media in an overall marketing campaign
• What new media are and their current and future applications
• How social media is distributed and absorbed
• Ways to measure the effectiveness of social media
• Whether it makes sense to develop a blog or podcasting network
• A guideline for what should and should not be broadcast using new media

If you're interested in registering, you can call call 1-800-775-7654 or click here.

Report from the SB Forum on Digital Transitions

I'm attending the 1st Annual SB Forum on Digital Transitions at UC Santa Barbara, a very interesting small conference exploring the impact of new media and the evolution of online community development from an interdisciplinary perspective. Fascinating!  Thanks to SNCR Senior Fellow JD Lasica for the invitation to this event.

Howard Rheingold opened the event last evening with an excellent and thought-provoking keynote (which I'll write about separately later after I've had a chance to review my notes and process it a bit more).

This morning we were welcomed by UCSB's chancellor and then Congresswoman  Lois Capps, of California’s 23 District Capps acknowledged that "the power of the blogosphere on the right and the left and online fundraising have revolutionized politics." She stated "there is a gap that needs to be addressed between information technology and society," and she especially emphasized the need for this in the area of healthcare (Capps has a background in nursing). But, she warned, "there is tremendous resistance in Washington, DC. We need translation of what you do into terms that are understandable for us. Please don't forget that we want to learn from you."

David Toole, president and CEO of Outhink Media and a UCSB graduate said, "in this room there are people that have so many different perspectives. It's important that we capture that and take it to the public. Technology is moving so much faster than the public can understand its ramifications." 

He recalled Howard Rheingold's comment during his keynote about the individual's ability to put their voice into the media. "The filters are going away. What impact does that have? There's so much content online today. How is that being interpreted? How is it being viewed?"

He also stated in a piece of personal media he showed, "Im trying to maintain a balance betwen community and commerce."

The first panel was entitled:  "Sustaining Engagement Online: Is Community in Tension with Collaboration?"

Panelists included: Mena Trott of SixApart, Clay Shirky of NYU, Myles Weissleder of Meetup.com, and Zack Exley of OMP (formerly of MoveOn.org), 

Moderators: Dr. Bruce Bimber, director, Center for Information Technology and Society, University of California Santa Barbara and Jennifer Earl, assistant professor of Sociology at UCSB

Earl introduced the topic: "We're interested in transitions in communities. Community has traditonally been defined as a geographical group of people with common interests. What does community mean today and how does it work and what does it do? People talk a lot about changing business models - there are changing organzaitional models as well. Now unboundedness, not boundaries enable community and collaboration."

Panelists introduced themselves with some opening comments:

Myles Weissleder: "People tend to throw meetup.com into the social networking bucket, but we consider ourselves outside of that bucket because it removes the element of the online world. We use the Internet to get poeople off the Internet, stimulating real offline community."

Clay Shirky: "The thing that has come to interest me are places where there are elements of community" but it's not the whole thing. (Examples: Oprah, Meetup, Wikipedia) "The thing that makes these examples work is that there is a community of passionate people at the hub of the network. There are a bunch of models where a small dedicated community can leverage a larger group of participants. We don't have as many examples of this convergence in the offline world."

Mena Trott - talked about LiveJournal, and later commented, "Ultimately it is about the sense of belonging and the spread of creativity. What's the utopian reason for doing this? I think it's just the ability of making people feel like they are closer and the same as other people and allowing them to compare ideas. It's just so human."

Zack Exley told us that started out as a union organizer and  later got into "this Internet organizing thing, (referring to MoveOn) which had exactly the same problems."

"I'm really interested in the intentionality of this all and think it's inportant that we figure this out for the purposes of making things happen. I'm really not content to just sit back and watch it unfold. I want good people who want to eliminate poverty and environmental destruction. I want us to figure out how to mobilize people really fast and really well. How do we use technology to make this happen?"

"There is a risk, so how do you get over that risk? The MoveOn solution was to put the number of people that were going to attend the event. That got more people to come to the events. If we hadn't used that tiny piece of technology, those events could have been a miserable failure."

Clay Shirky commented: "The more coherent and concise your goals are, the less that community is a good idea or will accomplish the defined goal you set out." That's why corporations have backed away from trying to form communities of consumers, he suggested.

Zack Exley added, "I agree, and we saw that in the Kerry campaign. But I think there's a possibility for a totally new type of community/organization to come into focus. We see some of the roots of this from the Dean campaign and MoveOn. Isn't is possible with technology that we might start accruing a lot of benefits of community while at the same time we define some specific goals."

He later added, "Right now we're all focused on the immigration protests, but as far as I can tell they're not being organized online. If they wanted to, they could use a MoveOn style campaign and have a great deal of influence."

Jennifer Earl asked about the evolution of leadership in online communities, and suggested that leadership can now look more like organizing than the traditional top-down role of the leader.

Other questions raised focused on whether we have a utopian view of online communities and how and why they should and are emerging and the idea of online communities being used for both "good" and "evil" and what kind of rules should we impose on the formation of online communities?

Next up: There was a choice of two breakout sessions:

Wireless Technology as a Catalyst: Possibilities for Next-Generation Interaction

and

Self-Regulation in Online Communities: Exception or Rule?

I chose the session focusing on wireless technologies. The moderator was Kevin Almeroth, Department of Computer Science, UCSB. Panelists included:

Supratik Bhattacharyya, Principal Member, Sprint Advanced Technologies Laboratory
David Lockton, President, Lockton Ventures
Mimi Ito, Research Scientist, Annenberg Center for Communication, USC
Howard Rheingold

Supratik Bhattacharyya discussed some of the important trends surrounding cell phones and wireless, including

1.the evolution of the cell phone as a multipurpose device
2. More types of services and more means of ubiquitous access
3. and increasing access in rural areas.

He said "think of it as a microprocessor in your pocket that has multiple applications" and suggested that in many ways it can almost replace the PC. But, he noted the critical challenge of the "walled garden of service providers."

Dave Lockton also noted several trends:

- the relationship between content and conduit -  only 4-5 large companies that own the content (previously cable operators) and 4-5 that own the conduit and decide what applications we have access to. Both sides have power and a say in how this will shake out.

- the user interface - "I predict that we're on our way to the 'information appliance.' In a short period of time, the interface will configure to what you "tell it" you want with voice recognition and will be customized to your interest and will incorproate a digital TCP, a wifi capability and a broadcast path for VOD and aduio on demand and will switch back and forth to provide you with all the content and services. But this will not be feasible until the phone's form factor is changed to accomodate those services."

Mimi Ito focused on the everyday behavior of users from an anthropological perspective. She studies users in Japan and noted:

- Japanese users turn the phone to manner mode when they leave the house

- Use text message more than voice mode

- Japan is the country with the longest and most established use of text messaging they subscribe to mobile internet so they can have cross-platform access to text messaging (not for web surfing)

- Primary driver of mobile internet is private communication with 2-5 and usually no more than 10 contacts - a personal, private communications portal

She predicted that there will be a convergence between the PC Internet and the mobile Internet and posed a couple of questions:

What will it take to shift the commerical mode of communication to more communal forms?

What will it take for the handheld device to become a media content and sharing platform?

All of these behaviors, even if they just look like simple, trivial modifications of existing technologies have the ability to change and leverage online communities in important ways, pointed out Ito.

Howard Rheingold talked about Larry Brilliant who has founded INSTEDD, and is interested in using the global mobile phone base and SMS technology to start an international network to inform and address world problems like hunger, poverty, disease.

"We saw after the tsunami and Katrina this emergence of response using new technologies. There are challenges to making something like this happen, but it is going to happen."

Rheingold then issued a call for action to move this project forward. "Let's do something with this in terms of collective action. There's huge opportunities for public health education using the mobile phone as a platform. Moore's Law is going to make these 2 billion devices more powerful."

"But I'm not so optimistic that a lot of these predictions are going to come true," concluded Rheingold, reinforcing the challenges posed by the control held by the carriers and the constraints they impose.

One question addressed the threat of VoIP to cell carriers. Supratik Bhattacharyya answered that providers are aware of this as a threat, and are "not anti-IP, but are trying to figure out how to address it." (or as some in the audience said "cash in on it").

And, Doc Searls noted: "All of this stuff was invented by geeks. A problem with cell phones is that they are "closed things" and we have to put up with what the manufacturers give us. What I'd like to see is an unbundling on the manufacturing side, but the inventors right now aren't in a position to offer anything into the marketplace."

LUNCHEON KEYNOTE

The luncheon keynote speaker was Dr. Noshir Contractor, professor of Communication and Psychology at the University of Illinois - Urbana-Champagne. His presentation featured a demo of digital harvesting and CI-KNOW analysis which used the SB Forum speakers' biographical information, published articles and URLs as the data which was analyzed using a variety of tools and technologies in order to create a multidimensional network analysis and visual charts showing connections between people and keywords. As he said, "this is a new way of looking at knowledge network and navigating through social networks."   So cool!!

The two afternoon panels offered were: Coordinating People Online  and Techno Roaming - Spotlighting Innovations from Around the World

The panel focusing on Organizing People Online was led by Jennifer Earl of UCSB. Panelists included:

Kevin Matthews - PetitionOnline
Sheeraz Haji, CEO, GetActive
Josh Silver - FreePress.net
Cynthia Stohl - Professor of Communication, UC Santa Barbara

Jennifer Earl introduced each of the panelists and encouraged them to "say something provocative." Here's what they had to say:

Kevin Matthews - "One of the characteristics of the human condition today is that we act on the world and each other as an enormous mass organism and we don't have the consciousness to effectively direct the mass impact. So somehow we need to develop a mass consciousness that can help to steer that mass impact.  These online tools are the best tools we have available to develop that mass conscousness."

One thing that has been interesting to note is how PetitionOnline has become an outlet for shared emotions, like Ilian Gonzalez, the 911 tragedy and Dale Earnhart's death for NASCAR fans results in mass participation, noted Matthews. "It's clear from the level of participation and the passion that it really fills a need. Part of the social structure of PetitionOnline is that people use it as a method of last resort. You petition when the door has been slammed in your face, and the people that use it are passionate."

Sheeraz Haji - "Most big groups suck at organizing people online." Most are not doing a good job of using their core people to advocate or fundraise for them. They are also not good at integrating the online with the offline experience. What's next? Email is dying. The solution: using RSS without people having to figure out that it's RSS.

Josh Silver - Freepress has emerged as the leading national media reform organization. The Internet is changing really quickly, and Josh identified some critical threats to the future of the Internet, including the proposed bill to eliminate net neutrality.

Josh introduced us to one of FreePress' initiatives, the Media Reform Action Squad, but said, "I don't know if this is going to work." He cautioned, "You can't just start an online tool and then let it roll. It takes as much legwork as it did in the 60s. You have to have professional organizers working it."

The issues that people find really important - like the woman's right to choose, war, etc. that are visceral are the easiest things to organize around. But in general, we see things going the other way becuse of three structural problems: campaign finance, politicians are bought and sold, and the corporate-run media. These structural issues need to be fixed.

Cynthia Stohl - discussed collective action theory and traditional types of engagement within organizations. "What we know is the traditional key elements are no longer viable. There's no longer the need for very tight boundaries and there's much more fluidity in organizations, so the theory isn't really relevant anymore." The study she is leading involved the creation of a "collective engagement space, consisting of several types of organizations, including "entrepreneurial," "personal," "impersonal" and institutional. What was surprising was when we talked to people in organizations about their online presence, the organizations leaders' goals was to become more entrepreneurial and personal. But the members' perceptions of the organizations were quite different. And, there was often a disjuncture between the members' perceptions of these organizations online and what organizations thought they were accomplishing online.